[[Image:Zork_screenshot.png|thumb|300px|Zork can run on modern Z-machine interpreters, as well as the older models it was made for originally.]] ''Zork'' was one of the first interactive fiction computer games and an early descendent of Colossal Cave Adventure (also known as Colossal Cave). The first version of ''Zork'' was written in 1977–1979 on a PDP-10 computer by Tim Anderson (Zork), Marc Blank, Bruce Daniels, and Dave Lebling, and implemented in the MDL programming language. All four were members of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Dynamic Modelling Group. "Zork" was originally Massachusetts Institute of Technology hacker jargon for an unfinished program. The implementors named the completed game ''Dungeon'', but by that time the name ''Zork'' had already stuck. Three of the original ''Zork'' programmers joined with others to found Infocom in 1979. That company adapted the PDP-10 ''Zork'' into ''Zork I-III'', a trilogy of games for most popular computers of the era, including the Apple II family, the Commodore 64, the Atari 8-bit family, the TRS-80, CP/M systems and the IBM PC. ''Zork I'' was published on 5¼" and 8" floppy disk. Joel Berez and Marc Blank developed a specialized virtual machine to run ''Zork I'', called the Z-machine. The trilogy was written in ''ZIL'', which stands for "Zork Implementation Language". Personal Software published what would become the first part of the trilogy under the name ''Zork'' when it was first released in 1980, but Infocom later handled the distribution of that game and their subsequent games. ''Zork'' is set in a sprawling underground labyrinth which occupies a portion of the "Great Underground Empire". The player is a nameless adventurer whose goal is to find the treasures hidden in the caves and return alive with them. The dungeons are stocked with many novel creatures and objects, among them Grue (monster) and zorkmid. The ''Zork'' universe and timeline has been extended by several of Infocom's other works of interactive fiction. ''Zork'' and its relatives are works of interactive fiction. ''Zork'' distinguished itself in its genre as an especially rich game, in terms of both the quality of the storytelling and the sophistication of its text parser, which was not limited to simple verb-noun commands ("hit grue"), but understood full sentences ("hit the grue with the sword"). The original Zork Trilogy: * ''Zork I: The Great Underground Empire'' (1980, Infocom) * ''Zork II: The Wizard of Frobozz'' (1981, Infocom) * ''Zork III: The Dungeon Master'' (1982, Infocom) Later additions to the series (all are text-only unless otherwise noted): * The Enchanter trilogy: ** ''Enchanter (computer game)'' (1983, Infocom) ** ''Sorcerer (computer game)'' (1984, Infocom) ** ''Spellbreaker'' (1985, Infocom) * ''Wishbringer'' (1985, Infocom) * ''Beyond Zork'' (1987, Infocom) * ''Zork Zero: The Revenge of Megaboz'' (1988, Infocom, text with some graphics) * ''Return to Zork'' (1993, Infocom/Activision, graphical) * ''Zork: Nemesis'' (1996, Activision, graphical) * ''Zork Grand Inquisitor'' (1997, Activision, graphical) * ''Zork: The Undiscovered Underground'' (1997, written by Mike Berlyn and Marc Blank (original Infocom implementors) and released by Activision to promote the release of ''Zork Grand Inquisitor'') It should be noted that the Enchanter trilogy and ''Wishbringer'' occupy somewhat unusual positions within the Zork universe. ''Enchanter'' was originally developed as ''Zork IV''; Infocom decided to instead release it separately, however, and it became the basis of a new trilogy. (In each trilogy, there is a sense of assumed continuity; that is, the player's character in ''Zork III'' is assumed to have experienced the events of ''Zork I'' and ''Zork II''. Similarly, events from ''Enchanter'' are referenced in ''Sorcerer'' and ''Spellbreaker''; but the ''Enchanter'' character is not assumed to be the same one from the Zork trilogy.) Although ''Wishbringer'' was never officially linked to the Zork series, the game is generally agreed to be "Zorkian" due to its use of magic and several terms and names from established Zork games. Among the games bundled in ''The Lost Treasures of Infocom'', published in 1991 by Activision under the Infocom brand, were the original Zork trilogy, the Enchanter trilogy, ''Beyond Zork'' and ''Zork Zero''. A second bundle published in 1992, ''The Lost Treasures of Infocom II'', contained ''Wishbringer'' and ten other non-Zork-related games. A series of original novels based upon the Zork universe were also published in the mid-1980s, most notably George Alec Effinger ''Zork Chronicles''. == See also == * The Zork timeline lists events in the fictional world of Zork * The Zork calendar lists months, days of the week, holidays, and years in the Zork timeframe * Zork magic lists spells, potions, and other means of magic in the Zork series * Encyclopedia Frobozzica, referred to in several games as an invaluable compendium of knowledge in the Zorkian universe * 69105 (number), a number that became somewhat of an in-joke in several Infocom games * Double Fanucci, a fictional card game with extremely complicated rules * The White House (Zork) is where ''Zork I'' begins, and also appears in several other games == External links == * [http://www.csd.uwo.ca/Infocom/ Zork I, II, III and the Undiscovered Underground downloads.] These downloaded games can be played on almost any platform using an appropriate Z-machine interpreter. * [http://www.petitiononline.com/zg15/petition.html Sign the Zork petition] * [http://www.infocom-if.org/ Infocom-IF.org], Infocom history, authors, etc; often updated with any news from Activision * [http://www.thezorklibrary.com/ The Zork Library], with the most active Zork-specific forum on the Internet * [http://thcnet.net/zork/ Online modified Zork hack] * [http://infodoc.plover.net/ The Infocom Documentation Project] * [http://www.csd.uwo.ca/Infocom/Articles/NZT/zorkhist.html The History of Zork], published in [http://www.csd.uwo.ca/Infocom/Articles/NZT/ The New Zork Times] * [http://quendor.robinlionheart.com/ Chronology of Quendor] * [http://www.gue-network.com/ GUE-Network], with a repository of images from packaging, maps, screenshots, etc. * [http://www.frobozzmagicco.com/ Frobozz Magic Co.] * [http://struckus.tripod.com/Zork.html The Zork Legacy] * [http://struckus.tripod.com/index.html The Zork Experience] * [http://www.irondune.com/words/quendor.html Cube of Foundation] * [http://www.neblig.com/zork/ Zork Grand Website] * [http://www.willie.handshake.de/loesung/zork.html das Zork-Universum] (German) * [http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/alabaster/A846867 Club Zork] * [http://www.mrbillsadventureland.com/links/zork/zork.htm The Wonderful World of Zork] * [http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Dungeon/8796/ UrGrue's Lair] Infocom Zork Interactive fiction
Hmm. This article should have a bit more about the general ambience of Zork. A few catchphrases, what it feels like to play. It's been too long for me to really remember, since I only played the game a few dozen times. (Moria all the way for me :) -- Cimon Avaro on a pogostick == Template sidebar == I've just created and added the Template:Zork universe template sidebar (based on the Template:Myst franchise one), which contains links to many of the Zork-related articles. It's designed to go on all the Zork pages. I hope this will be seen as a positive addition to the page, and not "clutter". I'm going to refrain from adding it to all the other pages until it receives some sort of approval. —User:EatMyShortz 03:20, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC) *I support 100%. It looks great! -- 03:22, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC) *Thanks very much. I see you've been busy adding it in already ;) —User:EatMyShortz 06:25, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC) Zorkmid looks wrong, there is a big empty space before the rest of the content begins - I almost missed it. Is there a way to fix that? User:Grue 11:26, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC) *I don't see the empty space in Internet Explorer or Mozilla. Can you take a screenshot and upload it here? -- 11:33, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC) *Here it is: :Image:Zorkmidshot.png. The browser is IE 6.0. User:Grue 11:45, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC) * I don't see that at all; mine looks fine in IE 6.0. We're using the same monitor resolution too, so I'm not sure what the problem is. -- 11:52, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC) * It looks fine for me too, but there could be a potential problem for lower resolutions than 1024x768 - because then the images all go behind the bar and it gets really ugly. Perhaps we could move the bar lower on that page? --User:EatMyShortz 12:39, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC) I've created stubs for Sorcerer (computer game) and Spellbreaker because I couldn't stand the red links on every page. However I don't really know anything about these games. If you do, go and add some information. —User:EatMyShortz 23:56, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC) * Done! Thanks for the work on these. -User:DynSkeet 14:54, Apr 11, 2005 (UTC) == Separate articles? == For some reason, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth whenever I see the individual Zork games redirecting to this page. Is there any argument against reducing this to a page discussing the history and "flavor" of the series in general, and creating an individual article for each of the three games? -User:DynSkeet 14:56, Apr 11, 2005 (UTC) *I believe they were intended to be a one game, but were split due to size limits of storage devices of these times. Most series of games have only one article on them (FIFA Series, Rollercoaster Tycoon and so on). Perhaps the template should be modified so it would show only one link instead of three? User:Grue 15:55, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC) *I think they should each have their own articles, or that all 3 should have one separate article, something like Zork trilogy. --brian0918">User:Brian0918™">User talk:Brian0918 16:04, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC) == What do I need to play zork == Okay i tried to install it but i'm receiving some weird messages. Is this game made for dos? Or do I need some kind of interpreter/emulator ? Thanks ''Xhami'' :You need an interpreter. There are several freeware ones available, and a couple of the more popular ones are Frotz and Nitfol. (There should be links to download them in each article.) -User:DynSkeet 12:21, Apr 29, 2005 (UTC)
Interactive fiction Infocom Fictional universes Fantasy computer games
See other meanings of words starting from letter:
Words begining with Zork:
Zork
Zork
Zork
Zork:_Grand_Inquisitor
Zork:_Nemesis
Zork:_The_Undiscovered_Underground
Zorka_of_Montenegro
Zorki
Zorkmid
Zork_Calendar
Zork_calendar
Zork_Grand_Inquisitor
Zork_I
Zork_Magic
Zork_magic
Zork_Nemesis
Zork_Timeline
Zork_Timeline
Zork_timeline
Zork_timeline
Zork_universe
Zork_Zero
Zork
[[Image:Zork_screenshot.png|thumb|300px|Zork can run on modern Z-machine interpreters, as well as the older models it was made for originally.]] ''Zork'' was one of the first interactive fiction computer games and an early descendent of Colossal Cave Adventure (also known as Colossal Cave). The first version of ''Zork'' was written in 1977–1979 on a PDP-10 computer by Tim Anderson (Zork), Marc Blank, Bruce Daniels, and Dave Lebling, and implemented in the MDL programming language. All four were members of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Dynamic Modelling Group. "Zork" was originally Massachusetts Institute of Technology hacker jargon for an unfinished program. The implementors named the completed game ''Dungeon'', but by that time the name ''Zork'' had already stuck. Three of the original ''Zork'' programmers joined with others to found Infocom in 1979. That company adapted the PDP-10 ''Zork'' into ''Zork I-III'', a trilogy of games for most popular computers of the era, including the Apple II family, the Commodore 64, the Atari 8-bit family, the TRS-80, CP/M systems and the IBM PC. ''Zork I'' was published on 5¼" and 8" floppy disk. Joel Berez and Marc Blank developed a specialized virtual machine to run ''Zork I'', called the Z-machine. The trilogy was written in ''ZIL'', which stands for "Zork Implementation Language". Personal Software published what would become the first part of the trilogy under the name ''Zork'' when it was first released in 1980, but Infocom later handled the distribution of that game and their subsequent games. ''Zork'' is set in a sprawling underground labyrinth which occupies a portion of the "Great Underground Empire". The player is a nameless adventurer whose goal is to find the treasures hidden in the caves and return alive with them. The dungeons are stocked with many novel creatures and objects, among them Grue (monster) and zorkmid. The ''Zork'' universe and timeline has been extended by several of Infocom's other works of interactive fiction. ''Zork'' and its relatives are works of interactive fiction. ''Zork'' distinguished itself in its genre as an especially rich game, in terms of both the quality of the storytelling and the sophistication of its text parser, which was not limited to simple verb-noun commands ("hit grue"), but understood full sentences ("hit the grue with the sword"). The original Zork Trilogy: * ''Zork I: The Great Underground Empire'' (1980, Infocom) * ''Zork II: The Wizard of Frobozz'' (1981, Infocom) * ''Zork III: The Dungeon Master'' (1982, Infocom) Later additions to the series (all are text-only unless otherwise noted): * The Enchanter trilogy: ** ''Enchanter (computer game)'' (1983, Infocom) ** ''Sorcerer (computer game)'' (1984, Infocom) ** ''Spellbreaker'' (1985, Infocom) * ''Wishbringer'' (1985, Infocom) * ''Beyond Zork'' (1987, Infocom) * ''Zork Zero: The Revenge of Megaboz'' (1988, Infocom, text with some graphics) * ''Return to Zork'' (1993, Infocom/Activision, graphical) * ''Zork: Nemesis'' (1996, Activision, graphical) * ''Zork Grand Inquisitor'' (1997, Activision, graphical) * ''Zork: The Undiscovered Underground'' (1997, written by Mike Berlyn and Marc Blank (original Infocom implementors) and released by Activision to promote the release of ''Zork Grand Inquisitor'') It should be noted that the Enchanter trilogy and ''Wishbringer'' occupy somewhat unusual positions within the Zork universe. ''Enchanter'' was originally developed as ''Zork IV''; Infocom decided to instead release it separately, however, and it became the basis of a new trilogy. (In each trilogy, there is a sense of assumed continuity; that is, the player's character in ''Zork III'' is assumed to have experienced the events of ''Zork I'' and ''Zork II''. Similarly, events from ''Enchanter'' are referenced in ''Sorcerer'' and ''Spellbreaker''; but the ''Enchanter'' character is not assumed to be the same one from the Zork trilogy.) Although ''Wishbringer'' was never officially linked to the Zork series, the game is generally agreed to be "Zorkian" due to its use of magic and several terms and names from established Zork games. Among the games bundled in ''The Lost Treasures of Infocom'', published in 1991 by Activision under the Infocom brand, were the original Zork trilogy, the Enchanter trilogy, ''Beyond Zork'' and ''Zork Zero''. A second bundle published in 1992, ''The Lost Treasures of Infocom II'', contained ''Wishbringer'' and ten other non-Zork-related games. A series of original novels based upon the Zork universe were also published in the mid-1980s, most notably George Alec Effinger ''Zork Chronicles''. == See also == * The Zork timeline lists events in the fictional world of Zork * The Zork calendar lists months, days of the week, holidays, and years in the Zork timeframe * Zork magic lists spells, potions, and other means of magic in the Zork series * Encyclopedia Frobozzica, referred to in several games as an invaluable compendium of knowledge in the Zorkian universe * 69105 (number), a number that became somewhat of an in-joke in several Infocom games * Double Fanucci, a fictional card game with extremely complicated rules * The White House (Zork) is where ''Zork I'' begins, and also appears in several other games == External links == * [http://www.csd.uwo.ca/Infocom/ Zork I, II, III and the Undiscovered Underground downloads.] These downloaded games can be played on almost any platform using an appropriate Z-machine interpreter. * [http://www.petitiononline.com/zg15/petition.html Sign the Zork petition] * [http://www.infocom-if.org/ Infocom-IF.org], Infocom history, authors, etc; often updated with any news from Activision * [http://www.thezorklibrary.com/ The Zork Library], with the most active Zork-specific forum on the Internet * [http://thcnet.net/zork/ Online modified Zork hack] * [http://infodoc.plover.net/ The Infocom Documentation Project] * [http://www.csd.uwo.ca/Infocom/Articles/NZT/zorkhist.html The History of Zork], published in [http://www.csd.uwo.ca/Infocom/Articles/NZT/ The New Zork Times] * [http://quendor.robinlionheart.com/ Chronology of Quendor] * [http://www.gue-network.com/ GUE-Network], with a repository of images from packaging, maps, screenshots, etc. * [http://www.frobozzmagicco.com/ Frobozz Magic Co.] * [http://struckus.tripod.com/Zork.html The Zork Legacy] * [http://struckus.tripod.com/index.html The Zork Experience] * [http://www.irondune.com/words/quendor.html Cube of Foundation] * [http://www.neblig.com/zork/ Zork Grand Website] * [http://www.willie.handshake.de/loesung/zork.html das Zork-Universum] (German) * [http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/alabaster/A846867 Club Zork] * [http://www.mrbillsadventureland.com/links/zork/zork.htm The Wonderful World of Zork] * [http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Dungeon/8796/ UrGrue's Lair] Infocom Zork Interactive fiction
Zork
Hmm. This article should have a bit more about the general ambience of Zork. A few catchphrases, what it feels like to play. It's been too long for me to really remember, since I only played the game a few dozen times. (Moria all the way for me :) -- Cimon Avaro on a pogostick == Template sidebar == I've just created and added the Template:Zork universe template sidebar (based on the Template:Myst franchise one), which contains links to many of the Zork-related articles. It's designed to go on all the Zork pages. I hope this will be seen as a positive addition to the page, and not "clutter". I'm going to refrain from adding it to all the other pages until it receives some sort of approval. —User:EatMyShortz 03:20, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC) *I support 100%. It looks great! -- 03:22, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC) *Thanks very much. I see you've been busy adding it in already ;) —User:EatMyShortz 06:25, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC) Zorkmid looks wrong, there is a big empty space before the rest of the content begins - I almost missed it. Is there a way to fix that? User:Grue 11:26, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC) *I don't see the empty space in Internet Explorer or Mozilla. Can you take a screenshot and upload it here? -- 11:33, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC) *Here it is: :Image:Zorkmidshot.png. The browser is IE 6.0. User:Grue 11:45, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC) * I don't see that at all; mine looks fine in IE 6.0. We're using the same monitor resolution too, so I'm not sure what the problem is. -- 11:52, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC) * It looks fine for me too, but there could be a potential problem for lower resolutions than 1024x768 - because then the images all go behind the bar and it gets really ugly. Perhaps we could move the bar lower on that page? --User:EatMyShortz 12:39, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC) I've created stubs for Sorcerer (computer game) and Spellbreaker because I couldn't stand the red links on every page. However I don't really know anything about these games. If you do, go and add some information. —User:EatMyShortz 23:56, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC) * Done! Thanks for the work on these. -User:DynSkeet 14:54, Apr 11, 2005 (UTC) == Separate articles? == For some reason, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth whenever I see the individual Zork games redirecting to this page. Is there any argument against reducing this to a page discussing the history and "flavor" of the series in general, and creating an individual article for each of the three games? -User:DynSkeet 14:56, Apr 11, 2005 (UTC) *I believe they were intended to be a one game, but were split due to size limits of storage devices of these times. Most series of games have only one article on them (FIFA Series, Rollercoaster Tycoon and so on). Perhaps the template should be modified so it would show only one link instead of three? User:Grue 15:55, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC) *I think they should each have their own articles, or that all 3 should have one separate article, something like Zork trilogy. --brian0918">User:Brian0918™">User talk:Brian0918 16:04, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC) == What do I need to play zork == Okay i tried to install it but i'm receiving some weird messages. Is this game made for dos? Or do I need some kind of interpreter/emulator ? Thanks ''Xhami'' :You need an interpreter. There are several freeware ones available, and a couple of the more popular ones are Frotz and Nitfol. (There should be links to download them in each article.) -User:DynSkeet 12:21, Apr 29, 2005 (UTC)
Zork
Interactive fiction Infocom Fictional universes Fantasy computer games
See other meanings of words starting from letter:
Z
ZA | ZB | ZC | ZD | ZE | ZF | ZG | ZH | ZI | ZJ | ZK | ZL | ZM | ZN | ZO | ZP | ZR | ZS | ZT | ZU | ZW | ZX | ZY |Words begining with Zork:
Zork
Zork
Zork
Zork:_Grand_Inquisitor
Zork:_Nemesis
Zork:_The_Undiscovered_Underground
Zorka_of_Montenegro
Zorki
Zorkmid
Zork_Calendar
Zork_calendar
Zork_Grand_Inquisitor
Zork_I
Zork_Magic
Zork_magic
Zork_Nemesis
Zork_Timeline
Zork_Timeline
Zork_timeline
Zork_timeline
Zork_universe
Zork_Zero
These materials are based on Wikipedia and licensed under the GNU FDL
YouTube.com videos better site than Turbo Tax 2007
